Conclusively, if the expanded "FullExceptionList" cannot be relied
on anymore, the minimal list is useless. Packages like sed, tar, gawk
suddenly cannot be expected anymore to be available in the buildroot.
This sucks.

So help us come up with a better hard list of packages, so that the
explicit list is more useful and we don't have to worry about implicit
changes, instead of just whining about it on a mailing list.

I'm not whining, but pointing out flaws which -- surprisingly -- meet
resistance.
With the full list deleted, coreutils, bash and many other fundamental
packages are not guaranteed to be available in the default buildroot
anymore. It is beyond my comprehension that somebody claims everything
would be fine.

There must be a miscommunication here. Bash is on the list that will
always be there:

As far as the 'full list deletee' it never should have been created in
the first place as it created an incorrect expectation of what would be
there.

You want a fix? Join the old minimal list and the expanded list to
build a new list. Keep the combined list unchanged and under control
of FESCo. That's the defined minimal list of BR which need not be
added to spec files.

Sounds fine to me, I like gawk :) Anyone care to own this and take it
to the FESCo?